


everything in its right place

by rekal



Category: Bandersnatch - Fandom, Black Mirror, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch
Genre: Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, forehead kissing :), hand holding :), what if.............. bandersnatch wasn't so fucking sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-01 22:17:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17252390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rekal/pseuds/rekal
Summary: The snow outside just kept getting heavier. Stefan pressed his face into the red cotton covering Colin’s chest and grinned.“This is a good timeline.”





	everything in its right place

**Author's Note:**

> I love these fellas......... very much
> 
> I Am Going To Write This And Get It On This Fucking Site Before 2018 Ends I Swear

****Colin couldn’t help but sigh at the sight of Mr. Thakur hurrying towards him- it was nine in the morning, he had just got back from Amsterdam the day before, and his supervisor already seemed determined to ruin his day.

Mr. Thakur used the side of Colin’s desk to break his momentum and hissed, not wasting any time with greetings, "Remember Stefan?"

Of course Colin remembered Stefan.

Colin had been gone for a week and a half, not the whole summer.

"Yeah. Speaking of Stefan, where's his team?"

"That's what I'm trying to talk to you about. He's ran them all out. The kid's mental, Colin."

“You fired him?”

“Not yet. He may have a fuck-ton of issues, but that game- Bandersnatch-”

“It’s coming along well, then.”

“Yeah, but-”

“So he doesn’t need a team.”

Mr. Thakur huffed. Colin continued, “You’re debating firing him because he’s creating a profitable game on his own terms, the same game he’s offering to you?”

“No, I’m debating firing him because he’s practically moved into the largest office on the floor. He’s leeching utilities and space without reason.”

Colin took a moment to process that. “He’s done what?”

“You heard me.” Mr. Thakur nodded at a light fake-oak door parallel to the handful of cubicles Colin sat in the middle of. “He’s been staying overnight to work more and more, practically papered the walls himself with notes for the game.”

“Shit.” Colin said. Seemed like Stefan was in **The Hole**.

“Yep.”

“Well, don’t kick him out. I’ll try and get through to him.”

“By the end of today.” Mr. Thakur responded, making eye contact with Colin.

Colin resisted the urge to sigh again. “Sure, by the end of today.”

 

**\-----**

 

Colin found that taking orders more literally than expected was a fun way of avoiding control. God knows Colin hated being controlled.

Mr. Thakur’s orders were no exception- Colin wanted to help Stefan, but not under the oppressive gaze of their supervisor. So he waited.

He waited until after everyone had left, until after sunset when Mr. Thakur had yelled at him for not talking to Stefan at the end of the _work day_ instead of the literal day, until after Stefan poked his head out of his office around eight to check if the building was empty and met Colin’s eyes instead.

He looked exhausted, Colin thought. The sight of him, overworked and anxious, reminded Colin of himself years ago- back when he made his own first deadlined game.

Colin continued working on Nohzdyve until his watch read 11:40. He shuffled through his work bag and pulled out a blunt leftover from his Amsterdam trip, flicking his lighter and breathing in.

Colin took a moment to watch the flame before forcing himself to get up and approach the door to Stefan’s claimed office.

_Knock, knock._

Colin heard Stefan shuffle towards the door. He opened the door slightly and watched Colin with wide eyes as the man took a drag and blew the smoke to the side without breaking their eye contact.

“You gonna let me in?” Colin said, his tone mildly impatient.

Stefan remained motionless for a few moments before quickly nodding and pulling open the door.

“Sorry, Colin.”

“It’s no problem, Mr. Thakur just-” Colin paused as he looked around the room. “Are you alright, Stefan?”

There was a sleeping bag in one corner, an basket overflowing with paper waste in another, and a cluttered company desk surrounded by taped up notes and drawings surrounding it positioned in front of the room’s only window.

Stefan seemed to panic at Colin's reaction. He began stumbling though his justification, words coming out faster than he could help. “I know it’s a lot to take on alone, and I know Mr. Thakur doesn’t want me staying overnight anymore, but I think I’ve got something here, Colin, I think I’m piecing something bigger together-”

“I get it, Stefan,”

“You do?”

“You’ve got something good in the works here, and the team was just slowing you down, so you think you’ve got to do this alone."

“Well. Maybe. Essentially,” Colin made eye contact with him. “Yes,” Stefan finished, his fingers reaching up to pull his earlobe.

“You’re wrong,” Colin said, turning and walking out of the room.

Stefan moved to the doorway and watched Colin move out into the cubicles.

“About what?”

“You don’t have to do this alone.”

Colin reached his desk and began pulling it out into the aisle. “Come on mate, help me push this.”

Stefan nodded silently and moved to help him with the desk. A bit later, Colin and Stefan’s desks sat pushed together in the building’s one closed off office.

“You don’t mind the clutter?” Stefan asked quietly when Colin handed him his blunt to finish off.

“Course not.”

“Do you want to see the game?”

“Was wondering when you’d say that.”

 

**\-----**

 

Colin first spent the night at Tuckersoft in early August.

The day had started regular enough for both him and Stefan- Colin brought him tea, Stefan gave him the rundown of the day’s plan, and they worked. And they’d continue to work, and plot, and write, and draw until Mr. Thakur pounded on the door and told them it was time to leave. Colin tried to split his time between Nohzdyve and Bandersnatch, but usually found his hours favoring the latter. Mr. Thakur wasn’t happy about that. Combined with Colin’s moving into the office, it was a wonder they hadn't been kicked out of the building already.

That evening, Stefan had accidentally deleted a base path. One of the earlier decisions in the game, that is, and the fifteen or so decisions that came after it.

Stefan, of course, had panicked.

“I’m about to head out,” Colin said as he pushed open the office door, holding a cup-o-noodles pack from the vending machine down the hall, his head pointed down as he read the pack’s ingredients list. He looked up when he got no response.

Stefan sat on the ground next to his chair, his head in his hands, the computer screen blank and white. Colin set the noodles down and promptly kneeled next to him.

“Mate. You alright? What’s happened?”

“I,” Stefan sounded choked up, teary.

Colin automatically put his hand on Stefan’s shoulder. “I messed up, made a rookie-” Stefan took a breath, “A rookie mistake. I deleted a whole path, Colin.”

“A big one, I’m assuming,” Colin replied. Stefan nodded, still holding his face in his hands. “Guess I won’t be heading out yet, then.”

Stefan turned his head slightly, looking through his fingers. “You’re staying?”

“That’s right. I’m not going to let you dig yourself into another hole, now.”

Stefan laid his hands on the ground and looked at Colin. He tried to smile. “Thank you.”

“It’s no problem.”

Over the course of four hours, they collected the plans for the deleted path and began building it back up, little by little, line by line. They had filled in a few branches by the time Colin looked up and found Stefan asleep, using his arm as a pillow with a line of code half typed on his monitor.

Colin made his way to the floor’s makeshift break room and made himself tea, reflecting on the scenario he had found himself in. He’d known Stefan for little more than a few weeks, but found himself feeling like he had known the man for a literal eternity.

Everything about Stefan, from the music he liked to his nervous tics felt indisputably familiar, not like deja vu, but like an old memory.

He wondered how many times they had actually met before last month.

After a few minutes, Colin set his empty mug down and moved quietly back to his space in the office, careful not to wake up Stefan.

The dark haired man’s hand hung off the side of his desk, twitching while he muttered incomprehensible sleeping thoughts.

Colin didn’t think much of it until Stefan’s voice, high pitched with anxiety, rang out, “Don’t jump, you’ll die!”

 _Shit, he’s having a nightmare,_  Colin thought.

“Come on, Colin,” Stefan’s voice said, quieter this time.

_A nightmare about me._

Colin ignored the familiarity of Stefan’s words and gently shook his shoulder. He stayed asleep. Colin shook him harder and to his relief, Stefan’s eyes opened- slightly.

Stefan, still half unconscious, met Colin’s eyes with visible relief. “You’re,” he whispered, voice soft with fatigue, “alright.”

There was a level of intimacy, a level of connection in the statement that Colin had never dared to seek out with Stefan before, but now felt himself collapsing into.

It felt _right_ when he took Stefan’s hand and sat, cross legged on the ground, next to his desk.

It felt _right_ to watch Stefan’s eyes fall shut again, a sleepy smile on his face.

It felt _right_ for Colin to lean his head against the plastic siding of Stefan’s desk and, still gripping his hand, drift off to sleep.

It just felt _right._

 

**\-----**

 

When August came to an end, a kettle, a second sleeping bag, and a large collection of snacks had found a home in Colin and Stefan’s office.

The few work nights where Colin stayed at the building were always accompanied by Stefan’s hand wrapped around his, nothing more, nothing less. An acknowledgement of other times, other times that they had forgotten or simply not experienced.

They hadn’t spoken about it yet. They didn’t need to.

 

**\-----**

 

 ****On the first Monday of September, Stefan wasn’t at the office. Colin didn’t expect his absence to affect him like it did, inspiring little worried thoughts about the many possible paths Stefan could be on, and just how many paths were _bad._

Around noon, when Stefan still hadn’t shown up, Colin called his house.

Stefan’s dad picked up. “Butler residence.” He sounded awfully tired.

“This is Colin Ritman, from Tuckersoft. ‘Ave you seen Stefa-” He was answered with a dial tone before he finished the question. Not a good sign.

Colin decided to look for him. He didn’t bother telling Mr. Thakur where he was going, he knew the man wouldn’t care. He checked the station, the shop down the road. No sign of Stefan.

Colin didn’t give up hope, though- there was one other place they shared, in dreams.

That is, Colin's own place. There was surely a chance Stefan'd be there, yeah? Colin supposed Stefan would know the way, even if he didn’t know the address.

Kitty was waiting for him when he got to the door, holding Pearl with one arm and ushering Colin inside with the other.

“Hey, Col.”

“Kit. Is Stefan here?”

She nodded, pointing towards the sitting room. “He needs some help, I'm telling you.”

Colin waved at a sleepy Pearl before hurrying to look for Stefan, scanning the room and finding the man sitting on the balcony, hugging his legs to his chest.

Colin pushed open the glass door and sat down across from him, looking at him with visible concern.

“What’s eating you, Stefan?”

Stefan set his chin on his knees and met Colin’s gaze with red-rimmed eyes.

“It’s my dad. He knows about me.”

“About what?”

“I’m gay, Colin.”

“Alright.”

“He kicked me out.”

“Oh. Alright,” Colin said, softening his tone.

They were both quiet for a moment. Colin opened his mouth to say he was sorry, when Stefan let out a small, pained laugh. “I was thinking. Why do you stay at the building and work with me? You have a family to take care of, yeah?”

“Well, Pearl’s not my daughter.”

“You- what?”

“And Kitty’s not my wife. Her girlfriend just lives out of town.”

“But you said-”

“I owe Kitty a lot, so I help take care of Pearl when her girl's not around and prevent the landlord from catching on to them when she is. It’s the least I can do, really.”

“And you’re…”

“Gay, yes.”

“Cool.” Stefan let out, breathlessly. Colin smiled nonchalantly and fixed his glasses.

“I probably should’ve mentioned that. Well, then,” Colin said, leaping up from his sitting position and offering Stefan a hand. “Let’s get some lunch.”

 

**\-----**

 

Stefan had his breakthrough a few days before the deadline.

Colin found himself stressed for one of the first times in years because of all the work they still had to get through- at least a week’s worth of checking and debugging, he’d estimated. So Stefan’s excitement that morning was relatively unexpected.

“You know how we’ve been having trouble with accommodating free will to the fullest extent and all?” Stefan said, leaning around his monitor to look at Colin.

“Ah, yeah? I suppose.”

“Well, why should we?”

“What?”

“Why should we try and cover the player’s free will, when we’re the ones programming the result? We control the ending regardless of what the player does, in the end.”

“So you’re wanting to limit the variety of results-”

“Of endings, yes, but I want to keep the number of paths and decisions.”

“Yeah, that’d do it. That’d give us enough time.”

“And make the game more enjoyable, I think. I’ve already begun.”

Colin nodded at him and stood, Stefan following suit. “Nice work, mate. You want to go get some food to celebrate, or-”

Colin was interrupted by Stefan’s lips on his, the man’s long fingers and dark curls pressed against his face.

Colin recovered from the initial shock quite quickly and kissed back, only breaking away to take a breath. He pressed their foreheads together, eyes closed, the taste of oversweetened tea lingering on his mouth.

“Your game’s going to be revolutionary, you know.”

“Our game.”

Colin gently took Stefan’s face in his hands and kissed his forehead, smiling. “Our game.”

 

**\-----**

 

 ****Their relationship was a balance of tender celebrations of little victories, learning each other's mental nooks and crannies, and impersonal working conflicts that would start with Stefan's paranoia clashing with Colin's certainty that their decisions were pointless in the scheme of things and would end with them wrapped up in one another's arms, sharing the space of one sleeping bag on the carpeted floor of their little grey office room.

By December, they had created two of the decade’s most popular computer games and had no intention of stopping. A programming power couple, Kitty called them.

“Five stars.” Stefan whispered, eyes glued to the television across from where him and Colin sat, pressed together, on Colin's couch. Bandersnatch was a success.

“Yep. Five stars.” Colin whispered back.

The snow outside just kept getting heavier. Stefan pressed his face into the red cotton covering Colin’s chest and grinned. “This is a good timeline.”

“The best, I’m sure.”

“I’m going to marry you.”

Colin couldn’t help but smile, then.

“Sounds good to me.”

**Author's Note:**

> (THOMPSON TWINS PLAYS LOUDLY)  
> Happy new year, everyone.


End file.
